This paper presents an improved formulation of axial elastic force in three-dimensional Bernoulli-Euler beam element based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation. An accurate measure of mean axial strain for evaluating the axial elastic forces characterizes the presented formulation. The presented formulation evaluates the mean axial strain accurately by calculating the length of deformed beam element along its neutral axis. A comparison of the conventional formulations of the axial elastic force and the presented formulation is performed in some numerical examples which contain large bending deformation of flexible beam. As a result, it is verified that the presented formulation can express large deformation accurately with smaller number of elements than the conventional formulation which calculates the mean axial strain with straight-line distance between both element nodes. Moreover, it is also verified that the presented formulation can avoid excessive increase in computing time to simulate the dynamic behavior of flexible beam.

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